African-American Vernacuwar (AAVE) is de native variety of de vast majority of working- and middwe-cwassAfrican Americans, particuwarwy in urban areas,[1] wif its own uniqwe accent, grammar, and vocabuwary features. Typicaw features of de grammar incwude a "zero" copuwa (e.g., she my sister instead of she's my sister), simpwification of de possessive form (e.g., my momma friend instead of my mom's friend), and compwexification of verb aspects and tenses beyond dose of oder Engwish diawects (e.g., constructions wike I'm a-run, I be running, I been runnin, I done ran, etc.). Common features of de phonowogy incwude non-rhoticity (dropping de r sound at de end of sywwabwes), de metadetic use of aks instead of ask, simpwification of diphdongs (e.g., eye typicawwy sounds wike ah), a raisingchain shift of de front vowews, and a wider range of intonation or "mewody" patterns dan most Generaw American accents. AAVE is used by middwe-cwass African Americans in casuaw, intimate, and informaw settings as one end of a sociocuwturaw wanguage continuum, and AAVE shows some swight variations by region or city.

African-American Standard Engwish is de prestigious end of de middwe-cwass African-American wanguage continuum, used for more formaw, carefuw, or pubwic settings dan AAVE. This variety exhibits standard Engwish vocabuwary and grammar but often retains certain ewements of de uniqwe AAVE accent,[5][6] wif intonationaw or rhydmic features maintained more dan phonowogicaw ones.[7] Most middwe-cwass African Americans are typicawwy bi-diawectaw between dis standard variety and AAVE, wearning de former variety drough schoowing, so dat aduwts wiww freqwentwy even codeswitch between de two varieties widin a singwe conversation, uh-hah-hah-hah. Of de phonowogicaw features maintained in dis standard diawect, dey tend to be wess marked features dat, for instance, even appear in some white standard diawects of Engwish.[7] One such characteristic is de omission of de finaw consonant in word-finaw consonant cwusters,[8] so words such as past or hand may wose deir finaw consonant sound.

The smaww numbers of bwack Appawachian Americans have been reported as increasingwy accommodating to de Appawachian/Soudern diawect commonwy associated wif white Appawachians. These simiwarities incwude an accent dat is rhotic, de categoricaw use of de grammaticaw construction "he works" or "she goes" (rader dan de AAVE "he work" and "she go"), and Appawachian vocabuwary (such as airish for "windy"). However, even African-American Engwish in Appawachia is diverse, wif African-American women winguisticawwy divided awong sociocuwturaw wines.[9]

Owder or earwier African-American Engwish refers to a set of many heterogeneous varieties studied and reconstructed by winguists as deoreticawwy spoken by de first African Americans and African swaves in de United States. Of primary interest is de direct deoreticaw predecessor to AAVE. Mainwy four types of sources have been used for de historicaw reconstruction of owder AAVE: written interviews, ex-swave audio recordings, de modern diaspora diawects of isowated bwack communities, and wetters written by eighteenf- and nineteenf-century African Americans.[11] The use of de zero copuwa (de absence of is or are, as in she gon' weave), nonstandard pwuraw forms (de dree mens, mans, or even mens) and muwtipwe negatives (as in no one didn't weave me noding) were occasionaw or common variants in dese earwier diawects, and de watter item even de preferred variant in certain grammaticaw contexts.[12] Oder nonstandard grammaticaw constructions associated wif AAVE are documented in owder diawects too; however, many of dem are not, evidentwy being recent innovations of twentief-century urban AAVE.[13]

Sea Iswand Creowe Engwish, or "Guwwah", is de distinct wanguage of some African Americans awong de Souf Carowina and Georgia coast. Guwwah is an Engwish creowe: a naturaw wanguage grammaticawwy independent from Engwish dat uses mostwy Engwish vocabuwary. Most Guwwah speakers today probabwy form a continuum wif de Engwish wanguage. A sub-diawect of Guwwah is awso spoken in Okwahoma and Texas, known as Afro-Seminowe Creowe.

There is a wong tradition of representing de distinctive speech of African Americans in American witerature. A number of researchers[14] have wooked into de ways dat American audors have depicted de speech of bwack characters, investigating how bwack identity is estabwished and how it connects to oder characters. Brasch (1981:x) argues dat earwy mass media portrayaws of bwack speech are de strongest historicaw evidence of a separate variety of Engwish for bwacks.[15] Earwy popuwar works are awso used to determine de simiwarities dat historicaw varieties of bwack speech have in common wif modern AAVE.[16][17]

As dere is no estabwished spewwing system for AAVE,[29] depicting it in witerature is instead often done drough spewwing changes to indicate its phonowogicaw features,[30] or to contribute to de impression dat AAVE is being used (eye diawect).[31] More recentwy, audors have begun focusing on grammaticaw cues,[19] and even de use of certain rhetoricaw strategies.[32]

Portrayaws of bwack characters in movies and tewevision are awso done wif varying degrees of audenticity.[33] In Imitation of Life (1934), de speech and behavioraw patterns of Dewiwah (an African American character) are reminiscent of minstrew performances dat set out to exaggerate stereotypes, rader dan depict bwack speech audenticawwy.[34] More audentic performances, such as dose in de fowwowing movies and TV shows, occur when certain speech events, vocabuwary, and syntactic features are used to indicate AAVE usage, often wif particuwar emphasis on young, urban African Americans:[35]

Nonstandard African-American varieties of Engwish have been stereotypicawwy associated wif a wower wevew of education and wow sociaw status. Since de 1960s, however, winguists have demonstrated dat each of dese varieties, and namewy African-American Vernacuwar Engwish, is a "wegitimate, ruwe-governed, and fuwwy devewoped diawect".[38] The techniqwes used to improve de proficiency of African-American students wearning standard written Engwish have sometimes been simiwar to dat of teaching a second wanguage.[39]Contrastive anawysis is used for teaching topics in African-American Vernacuwar Engwish. Bof de phonowogicaw and syntactic features of a student's speech can be anawyzed and recorded in order to identify points for contrast wif Standard American Engwish.[39] Anoder way AAE can be taught is based on a strategy, communicative fwexibiwity, dat focuses on wanguage used at home and anawyzes speech during dramatic pway.[40] Using dis medod, chiwdren are taught to recognize when SAE is being used and in which occasions, rader dan conforming to de speech around dem in order to sound correct.[40]

Awdough de stigmatization of AAE has continued, AAE remains because it has functioned as a sociaw identity marker for many African-Americans.[41] The goaw wif teaching SAE is not to end its use, but to hewp students differentiate between settings where its use is and is not appropriate.[41]

Baiwey, Guy (2001), "The rewationship between African American Vernacuwar Engwish and White Vernacuwars in de American Souf: A sociocuwturaw history and some phonowogicaw evidence", in Lanehart, Sonja, Sociocuwturaw and Historicaw Contexts of African American Engwish, Varieties of Engwish Around de Worwd, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pubwishing Company, pp. 53–92

Howwoway, Karwa (1978), A criticaw investigation of witerary and winguistic structures in de fiction of Zora Neawe Hurston (Ph.D dissertation), Michigan State University

Howwoway, Karwa (1987), The Character of de Word: The Texts of Zora Neawe Hurston, West Port, CT: Greenwood Press

Howton, Sywvia Wawwace (1984), Down Home and Up Town: de Representation of Bwack Speech in American Fiction, London: Associated University Press

Howe, Darin M.; Wawker, James A. (2000), "Negation and de Creowe-Origins Hypodesis: Evidence from Earwy African American Engwish", in Popwack, Shana, The Engwish History of African American Engwish, pp. 109–139